iPhone trying to send iMessage to non iPhone.

Read https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5642794?tstart=50

I posted this problem over 6 months ago and the problem continues. Some contributers believe they have the fix, but they don't. Apple is in control here. If an IPhone customer migrates to another company and neglects to turn off Imesssge there servers will continue to hold the number for three months. Be patient - it will end.

I agree with stairclimber113 that the blame lies with the people leaving Apple not to have the foresight to turn iMessage off.

That said, I'd say that the 2-or-3-month iMessage timeout is a little on the long side...

I was having the same problem until today. All I did was go to Settings then to messages and I turned iMessages off. Voila, problem fixed.

Did you do this on your iPhone or on yur friends because if it's yours then you now can't use iMessage, if it wAs on your friends phone that wouldn't work, because I've tried just about every trick in the book, the only one I haven't tried is calling because I don't feel like sitting on hold for an hour

I too am having a problem with iphone users being able to send me text messages on my Android phone because I made the mistake of trying an iphone for a couple of months.

I started with an Android phone then about a year later, deactivated it and activated my son's old iphone 4s. I didn't have to turn off any messaging or and features on the Android and other then not being able to transfer my contacts, everything else seemed to go seemlessly.

After 2 months I decided I didn't like the iphone so I reversed the process, never in a million years thinking I'd have to unsubscribe to anything or turn anything off. I did both switches with the help of my cell phone carrier.

It wasn't until a few weeks later that I happened to turn on the iphone because I thought I'd still use it to take pictures and noticed an iphone user had sent me a text that day and it never came through on my activated Android phone.

I started searching for help in how to resolve this and saw where it said you should unregister your phone at the apple site but my phone wasn't even listed, however the ipad I no longer had was listed along with the macbook pro I stopped using. I unregistered the ipad and still looked for a solution to the text messaging issue.

The next day I went to my cell phone carrier with both phones and they turned off imessage thinking that would help.

It didn't.

Ironically enough, I have been able to get text messages from 2 different iphone users. I think they both are still using the previous operating system but my friends with the new operating system can't send me a text. Now they're not even coming to the iphone since imessage is turned off.

My next step was to change my password. (one of the other tips) This didn't help but it did now give iphone users a message saying they couldn't deliver the text. If they clicked the exclamation mark, they could resend it as a text and it would go through.

This was not a complete solution so I called the tech department for my cell phone carrier and they said it's an on going problem that they've been working to resolve with Apple.

They said Apple had to take my number out of their portal and they were going to patch me through to an Apple rep to help fix the problem.

According to the Apple rep, my number was taken out of their registry the day I unregistered the ipad so I'm thinking that's how the number got removed.

They also said that eventually this would all straighten itself out but in order to get it fixed immediately, my iphone friends had to delete all text messages from me and delete my contact information then put my contact information back in.

My son did this with his iphone and then tried to send me a text. This time he got an error but was able to resend it as a text so obviously the solution didn't work or didn't immediately work.

I decided to try unregistering my macbook pro and see if that would help but before testing it out, I found this post where it said to hold down the bubble after typing your text and then say send as text. I held down the bubble but I didn't get any options however the text turned to a green bubble and got sent. I tried just sending another text without doing anything special and it too went through. I don't know if it's fixed or what might have fixed it but those are all the steps I took to try and fix this.

Now I'm hoping my iphone friends witll delete me from their contacts and delete my text messages and see if by doing that and reentering my information, they'll be able to send me text messages without any glitch.

Basically, the problem is that the person who changes their phone needs to deactivate their number on itunes, but the only way they'll know to do that is to have the problem that we are all having. Apple doesn't mention the fact that if you get a new phone (not iphone) that you'll just annoy off all of your friends who have iphones that keep sending you imessages. The stupid thing is that you can't tell your phone to send text messages to a number (so much for a smart phone). I thought I had it all figured out when I changed my friends contact from "iphone" to "mobile" thinking that my phone would now just send him regular texts... wrong, apparently it makes too much sense to do that. Apple needs to come up with a way that we can fix it and not have to hassle our friends or whoever into deactivating their number.

Actually deactvating the phone in itunes doesn't solve the problem. I have deactivated my iphone in itunes even though I had planned on still using the phone as a music player but figured I'd try to disassociate the phone with anything apple and my brother still can't send me a text without first getting an error and then sending the message again as a text. He's deleted me from his contacts numerous times and deleted all my text but he can't just send a text and have it go through with no problems.

So... i have to wait 2-3 months for this nonsense to end for it to QUIT sending as imessage to a now NON iphone user?
This is a NUSIANCE >.<
UGHHHHHHH!!!!

I have had this problem forever with one friend or another switching from iPhone to Android. There is a feature on my phone that allows me to simply hold on send and it changes to text. I am unsure if this goes for all iPhones, but it works on mine. It is irrelevant to this post, but you can also switch back to iMessage via the same method. It is a really great feature that Apple should consider adding in the next update. It is very simple and very useful.

My phone:

iPhone 4S

iOS 7.0.4

BiteSMS installed (Cydia app)

Was having the same problem as mentioned above. BIG thank you to iKnowWhy as removing the sim card from my old iphone fixed the problem for me. Thanks a ton - I was ripping my hair out. Makes me happy that I left apple, Sheesh

I was having this same problem tonight after moving a number from an iPhone to a non apple device. This is how I solved the problem.

1. Deleted the iMessage conversation.

2. Removed the contact.

3. Rebooted my iPhone (This was the affected device sending an iMessage when it should have been a text).

4. Then sent a text to the phone number without creating a contact. (It tried to send an iMessage for about 2 seconds and then quickly reverted to a text message. Every text there after was fine).

5. Re-created the contact.

Here's hoping this may help someone else.

So I *think* I may have found the solution or at least the one that worked in my case so far. My wife had an iPhone for one week (just couldnt convert her) and I've been dealing with this since early December and finally I called Apple. They are Baffled as it only happens on ONE of my iphones (the one I had iMessaged her from) so there is definitely a cache on the phone itself of this data. My guess is that after the initial reply from apple the number itself is cached as iMessage seperate of a contact, I was able to verify this (in my instance) by wiping the contact and manually typing the number in after deleted all message threads and the number from the recents list; it still showed up as imessage

Solution: I had a hunch that this data was probably stored in the network settings and apparently I was right; reset network settings resolved this issue for me and relearned all my iMessage recipients as I texted them!

And to follow up a bit with this, it seems certain numbers IE ones that used your apple ID are almost hardcoded into your apple ID. You may have luck removing your apple ID from imessage then doing the reset as well.

This worked for me too (thanks gtpprix!!).

I had already unregistered the device from Apple but only after I reset Network Settings (on the phone sending texts/imessages) did it start sending messages to it as SMS.

i.e FIX = Reset Network Settings on iPhone SENDING messages.

🙂